The Smurfs are communists!

Their clothing is either uniform white or revolutionary red. They don't use money, they all work regardless (except for Lazy), and they share everything. Their conformity may even be genetic; few are clearly physically different; they are mostly one gender and effectively sexless. Their leader is a Karl Marx lookalike; their allies are pagan nature spirits (Mother Nature, Father Time); and their enemy is a stand-in for Christian religion (Gargamel wears Franciscan friar robe and has a bald spot/tonsure) and capitalism (he wants to eat them or turn them to gold). He has a cat named after the angel Azrael and gets advice from a magic tome (The Bible). Gargamel the alchemist himself is often claimed to a Jewish stereotype, due to his features (he's got that hooked nose) and his obsession with gold.

A milder theory is the show promotes conformity and groupthink. Individual smurfs inevitably get into trouble whenever they work contrary to the community's opinions. To make sure that groupthink is regularly promoted, one non-conformist smurf is allowed to exist and be continually humiliated.

Except... that theory doesn't really work at all, does it? Outside of looking alike (and the Smurfs themselves act like they all look totally different, so they're clearly able to tell each other apart even if we aren't) and dressing similarly (which seems to be a fashion thing, or maybe just that most Smurfs don't want to spend a lot of time deciding what to wear today), the Smurfs aren't particularly conformist. Outside of "working for the common good" in which each Smurf uses his particular talents for the good of the village, they're very clearly allowed to be as individualistic as they like, and individualism is celebrated rather than frowned upon. Otherwise characters like Grouchy, Lazy and especially Jokey would never have been allowed to continue the way they do, and really the only reason why Brainy gets so much beef from the other Smurfs is that he's an annoying, snotty suck-up who thinks he knows everything better than everyone else, not because he doesn't conform.

Not only does Papa Smurf look like Karl Marx, but also Brainy (the Smurfs' killjoy) resembles Trotsky.

The final seasons with the kid smurfs represent glasnost. Grandpa Smurf, who wore gold, symbolizes the peaceful "destruction" of the USSR.

One problem with that theory: In early 20th-century Russia, white was generally seen by Communists as the color of the enemy, those who supported the old regime (or at least the old style of regime).

Their hats look very much like Phrygian caps, hats that aren't necessarily Communist but have been an emblem of many radical revolutionary movements throughout history (most notably during the French Revolution).

Actually this is true, except for it being described as a negative thing. Communism basically means we live together, work together, and share everything as a whole. Communism in practice and in small communities- like the community the smurfs live in- works; its when you reach a scale where every person won't know every other person as a matter of course that inefficiencies, tyranny, and corruption sneak in. After all most Monasteries around the world function via communism, so do the Amish. So yes the Smurfs are 100% communists, they're just not "the evil reds" the media during the Cold War made Communism out to be, at least until they expand from the "small village" scale to the "nation-state" scale, which isn't anywhere near the foreseeable future.

Don't you see it? "SMURF" is an acronym for Soviet Men Under Red Father!

The Smurfs are Klansmen, and the show is KKK propaganda.

They all wear pointy white hats and white clothes, except the leader, who wears a pointy red hat and red clothes. It's an all-male group except for the blonde-haired blue-eyed female. Sometimes they dance around a big fire. They are terrorized by Gargamel (who, as mentioned above, has distinctly Jewish features); his cat, Azrael, is named for an angel of death. Both Gargamel and Azrael want to eat the Smurfs because they are threatened by the superior blue people.

Additionally, the Snorks are a similar species to the Smurfs who fled to the sea to escape the persecution of the blue skinned, snorkless "master race" {UberSchmurfen).

The Smurfs are two distinct races

One is the common male type; the other is the Smurfette, the female type. The normal life cycle for smurfs is this: a mushroom house grows and produces a Smurf. The Smurf cares for the house until the house dies, at which point the Smurf takes root and grows into a new house. This explains the strange balance of gender in the town; the Smurfette is either a mutant or a separate species.

Canon states - and shows - that Smurfette was a construct made by Gargamel who was turned face by Papa Smurf. (Yes, there was an episode all about this.) When another female smurf was finally made, much later, she too was a construct (same recipe plus a dash of explosive, different proportions); she too had to be turned face (though it went much faster that time). Before the original Smurfette was made, Smurf Village was entirely male (or entirely asexual, if we're right here). This leaves other questions... Disturbing questions.

Not two distinct races - the mushroom houses are actually female smurfs. Immature smurfs are produced by them, and most will eventually take root and grow into more mushroom houses. Some however will grow a beard-like structure on their face, which produces spores to impregnate the female smurfs. They're probably asexual until they reach maturity, with only the most successful smurfs (ie, those most suited to passing on their genes) Growing the Beard. This explains the multitude of strange things that immature smurfs do; they're trying to prove their reproductive fitness. When a smurf does grow a beard, he will immediately leave his own village and seek out another, where he will either gather a group of immature smurfs to himself or kill its Papa Smurf and take over. This explains why Papa Smurf's clothes are red rather than white.

Another possibility is that Smurfs are immortal or all of them are artificial. That's why we only see one Smurf village and no means of reproduction- that's all there are and will ever be unless somebody creates more. They could even be Gargamel's creations that escaped his lab but nobody mentions it.

Smurfette is the Smurf Queen

...In the eusocial, egg-laying sense. All the "male" smurfs except Papa Smurf are drones worker "bees"-- neutered females. Only the male, Papa Smurf, can mate with the Queen. The "smurflings" are males from another nest and a proto-queen, which are exchanged between nests to promote genetic diversity (and because the lone true male is getting too old to perform his Smurfly duties). As soon as the smurflings mature, Smurfette and Sassette will fight to the death to determine who will be Queen...

People would pay to see the Smurfette / Sassette smackdown.

Baby Smurfs are delivered by Storks on the night of a blue moon. The female Smurfs are created by Gargamel's black magic, and the young Smurfs we see are de-aged formerly adult Smurfs. This is all in the canon

Smurfberries are their equivalent to honey. They occasionally steal some herbs from Gargamel's lair and mix it with mashed Smurfberries to create royal Smurfjelly in order to yield a new Smurf Queen.

Papa Smurf is the queen bee of the colony.

He's past the smurf equivalent of menopause, during which time the elder female grooms an heir. Bees don't need to do this because they're not sentient like Smurfs. The hormones in royal jelly are the only thing necessary for a new queen bee.

The events in the infamous UNICEF ad take place before the entire series

The series is nothing more than Papa Smurf's dying hallucinations.

The Smurfs were real, and went extinct in Medieval times

They lived in a remote, inaccessible part of western or central Europe (possibly in the Ardennes or Burgundy), and were observed by a hermit or reclusive alchemist. The alchemist first learnt of the smurfs' existence after his cat killed one of them and brought it home. The corpse of this strange little blue creature intrigued him, and later on, he actually managed to save one of these little creatures from his cat. The little creature spoke a language of sorts, but it was not familiar with any spoken or written language the alchemist was familiar with. Nonetheless, the creature gradually learnt enough words to allow him to communicate with the alchemist, though it kept infusing its sentences with appearantly meaningless words or sounds, such as "schtroumpf". The alchemists became friends with the smurf, and he also managed to establish some sort of friendship with the other smurfs (though their general distrust for him remained until after his cat died later that year). After this, the alchemist described the smurfs' society - how they lived in a small, curious village, in which some houses were partially made of local mushrooms, and how they were led by a single elder, who dressed in red rather than in white. In his talks with the elder, the elder smurf revealed that they have a very long lifespan, but that they were nonetheless the last of their kind. Female smurfs, he stated, had existed in the past, but none of them survived, and he was the last smurf who had seen a female of his own kind. Then, a few years later, a particularly harsh winter forced the smurfs to leave their village in search for food. Whatever happened to them after that, they never returned.

Centuries later, a certain Belgian comic artist decided to do some reading up on Medieval alchemy and folklore in order to get some ideas for his comic, and then he came across some book that happened to discuss, among other things, the surviving fragments of this alchemist's writings. He decided to do something with these strange little blue creatures the alchemist mentioned, and thus he worked them into his comic, and later even made a separate comic series about them. Several aspects of the original story were adapted or altered; the alchemist became an evil yet incompetent sorceror, his cat didn't die and continued to terrorize the smurfs, the smurfs did return after their exodus (e.g. the entire story of La Faim des Schtroumpfs), and a female, baby and child-smurfs were introduced later on. Then the comic caught on, a cartoon was made, and the Disneyfication was tuned up even more.

Really? I thought the bubonic plague killed them.

They were killed indirectly

As it turns out, the smurfs were little more than cattle to a subterranean species that shared a common ancestor with the smurfs. If I remember right, they were called Schlocks. And they referred to smurfs as Smurloi. Well, the schlocks built everything the smurfs used and distributed them evenly amongst the smurfs to keep them nice and fit. While it may have seemed like the smurfs lived happily at the schlock's expense, the schlocks came out at night to abduct smurfs and take them to their underground lair to feast on them. Papa Smurf himself was part schlock and tried his best to hide the sad truth from the smurfs.

After Gargamel discovered the schlocks, he found that melting them down could turn lead into diamond-covered platinum filled with saffron, and they made a good substitute for the smurfs. The schlocks were driven to extinction by Gargamel, and as a result, the lazy smurfs pined away and died.

Smurfette and Sassette are male cross-dressers

Every male Smurf has a "theme"-- Smurfette's is being a transvestite, Sassy's is being a tomboy, but both are actually male. No wonder all the Smurfs are blue...

The Smurfs are hyper evolved Pokemon

Smurfs are Pokemon who have evolved into a higher state of being and achieved enlightenment as a race, giving them inate (rather than leared) speech and allowing them to live in a peaceful society. The only relic of their genetic past is the continued use of the word 'smurf' as both a Noun and a Verb, a throwback to when 'Smurf' was the entire vocabulary.

Likely history of the Smurfs

The guessing is that Grandpa and Nanny Smurf were the first two Smurfs, and they were supposed to be the respective father and mother figure to the Smurfs brought by the stork, thus explaining why Nanny is the only natural-ocurring female smurf. During that time, Grandpa wasn't known as "Grandpa" yet, but as Papa Smurf (and maybe Nanny as Mama Smurf), and his little Smurflings wore red rather than white. The current Papa Smurf was then one of the little Smurfs (maybe the Sorcerer Smurf?), and the first Black Smurfs plague happened when he was 100 years old, as told in the "The Black Smurfs" book (likely solved more easily than the return of the plague during the book). When Grandpa (then Papa) Smurf became older, the current Papa Smurf was chosen to raise the new generation since he was the more mature among his brothers, and the now Grandpa Smurf decided to know the world beyond the village and went traveling along with Nanny. The stork brought 99 Smurfs to Papa Smurf to raise, but one got lost (the Smurfs trying to find the lost Smurf during the flashback in the "The Wild Smurf" book were likely Papa Smurf's brothers), which would cause trouble several years later in "The Hundredth Smurf" when 100 Smurfs were needed for theDance of the Moon. Maybe even Papa Smurf's brothers became Papas of other villages, far away and much smaller, with an average number of 15 Smurfs (cousins to the Cursed Land Smurfs).

I lean, look at him! The Scottish accent, the kilt, the gung-ho attitude, the greater-than average strength (he's strong enough to hogtie Neil Patrick Harris)... he even has reddish sideburns! Clearly he's not a Smurf at all, but a Feegle with a drinking problem (i.e. he doesn't drink, which would be viewed as a problem for a Feegle) who somehow got lost while skipping through alternate realities, and was adopted by the Smurfs. Life with them has mellowed him out somewhat, so he's not as violent or prone to stealing things, but he retains much of the traditional Nac Mac Feegle attitude.

Because they are human-shaped, have no fur, and are generally shirtless (with the exception of Smurfette, who was an artificial Smurf who weark a skirt anyway), they've adapted to being in a constant state of near-hypothermia and no longer recognize being at a "comfortable" temperature as comfortable.

There WERE multiple female smurfs in the past; patriarchal misogyny phased them out.

If you want to call the smurfs Communist, look at the crisis China has undergone recently - the One Child Policy coupled with classic patriarchal misogyny led to a bride shortage so bad that the government had to provide financial "incentives" to get families to have daughters instead! Something similar happened with the smurfs, except it went to the farthest point possible; they undervalued females and disdained raising female baby smurfs until there were none left! None of the smurfs from the current generation had ever seen a female before Gargamel created Smurfette, and neither had Gargamel, since a human life span is only about the tenth of a smurf's.

Brainy Smurf has Asperger's.

Isn't it obvious?

Snorks evolved from Smurfs

One day, Gargamel flooded the Smurf's village and the all got washed out to sea. Papa Smurf put a spell on everyone to allow them to survive underwater. As a side effect of a spell, the Smurfs form changed, and it also caused them to start reproducing normally without the need of a stork or a blue moon, which resulted in more females being born.

In the movie continuity, Peyo was a wizard

From the Wikipedia scene, we know that Peyo existed in the movie continuity, where the Smurfs, even though less famous than in our world, were nevertheless drawn by him as the subject of at least one children's book. That book contains detailed accounts of the Smurfs' lives, as well as functional spells that the Smurfs can use to open the portal that leads them to their village. From that, we can infer that Peyo has invented, or at least used, those spells, and wrote that book because he visited the Smurfs' village himself.

Gargamel knows where the Smurfs' village is.

If you think he didn't know, think again. Maybe he implanted something on Smurfette after he created her to track down where the Smurfs' village is. This is something that Papa Smurf didn't get rid of.

Baby Smurf will become the successor of Papa Smurf.

Despite being... well, a baby, he has magic powers that no other Smurf has. Those powers would be very handy, not only in preparing magic potions like Papa Smurf does, but also in doing different types of magic, beyond what Papa Smurf can do. In addition, his first word was "Gargamel", which was interpreted as a sign that he is destined to become a great leader.

We don't know. It could also mean he'd became a traitor to smurfhood.

Based on the episode more likely he'll be the one to finally make peace with Gargamel.